10 for the Tolkien meta meme?

10. Pick a character or group who you believe is unappreciated, undervalued, or undeservedly reviled by fandom and explain why they are awesome.

I am an absolutely shameless, intractable sympathizer of the Noldor. I completely understand that in the context of Tolkien’s worldview and that of many of his aficionados one is supposed to judge them harshly if not outright condemn them. My problem is that he made them so damned attractive. The unproblematic good guys are a snooze compared to the Noldor. No contest sympathizing with the rebellious Noldor against the Vanyar, sitting at the foot of Manwë’s throne singing songs of praise. Great characters are always imperfect.

It is true that a lot more people like the Noldor these days than they did when I first came around the fandom through The Lord of the Rings. A lot of people thought of them as pure and simple villains or tragic losers who had no common sense. I remember the days when the Valar were taken at face value as always good and always right and the Noldor were bat-shit crazy, obsessed with some jewels. If that was the plot why would anyone want to read the book?

I love the Noldor for their passion, for their creativity, for their courage, for their ambition, for their beauty, and their heights and their depths. I love that they have highs and lows. I love that Tolkien makes you love them and breaks your heart when they fail. Those are the great stories, not happily ever after endings reached by flawless Pollyannas.

Tolkien meta ask 9 ( pick a sibling relationship)?

As far as examining sibling relationships Tolkien left us an abundance of riches! Fanfiction heaven: the drama of Fingolfin and Fëanor! Maedhros and Maglor—the eldest of the Big Seven keeping the oath to the bitter end. But then there are the Bad Boys of Nargothrond, Curufin and Celegorm. What a terrific story they have—Mini Fëanor and Oromë’s favored son. Love them or love to hate them there is a lot more to think about than only deeds of their final decline. Don’t make me chose! Actually, I have probably written more about Elrond and Elros as brothers—being raised by Maglor and Maedhros and the pain of their choice—than any of the other siblings who interest me.

At The Worcester Art Museum, New Signs Tell Visitors Which Early American Subjects Benefited From Slavery

universal-equivalent:

I love this project. It’s more than a simple labelling of individuals as beneficiaries of slavery; more than what some might derisively call “virtue signaling”. It isn’t a cheap “gotcha! You thought this man looked cool, but it turns out he was an evil enslaver.”

Consider the erasure and concealment of violence within art, present at the founding of modern-day art markets. Consider the creation of the field of aesthetics. Consider that these enterprises were founded, essentially, because aristocratic and the burgeoning bourgeois classes needed to spend their money on something, needed to conspicuously consume. Art was a way of reasserting one’s elite social status for the aristocracy; or a way of verifying it for the bourgeois. Good taste became the marker of a good man. 

Consider also that this new money, spent on luxuries because these classes had such a surfeit, came from the enslavement of African peoples. So this is the concealment of violence within art: that the hedonistic refinement of life depicted in art of this era –sumptuous still-lives, luxurious portraits featuring fox furs, women in taffeta, lace, and velvets, with golden chalices, horses bedecked in gold and silver reins–  are all bought with money whose condition of possibility is the trading of Africans on the world market. 

Of course these works are still beautiful– but rather than run from what makes the lifestyles captured in paint (not to mention the paint and canvas itself) possible, examine it. What does it mean that so much of Europe’s tradition of beautiful art is produced through such unsightly means. I have trouble in museums for just this reason. I’m enraptured by silver plates embossed with patterns of flowers, recoiled by the knowledge that what produced it was my ancestors’ enslavement, and– this is the largest part of my trouble, one cannot change the past after all– infuriated by the fact that this fact goes unacknowledged. Capitalism by definition frustrates efforts to trace the torturous routes of market circulation and the lives it immiserates in the process. Nevertheless, the ethical and, more importantly, knowledgeable consumption of art requires this contextualizing, historicizing detective work. So glad this project exists, it’s the first step.

The point is that museums should not exist outside a historical context. The source article above also references an earlier project: 

“Walking through the Worcester collection reminded me of Fred Wilson’s 1992 “Mining the Museum” project. Wilson looked through storage at the Maryland Historical Society and found artifacts related to slavery the museum had acquired but not displayed. He then placed those objects on view next to the conventional artifacts on display, such as slave shackles next to a gilded chair.”

At The Worcester Art Museum, New Signs Tell Visitors Which Early American Subjects Benefited From Slavery

enchantedengland:

rasluka17: red-lipstick: Natural History Museum, London  Do you see the little creatures climbing up the wall??? They look like gollums :O

enchantedengland: There are 78 monkeys climbing three arches, in nine different active poses, facing alternately right and left. The architect Alfred Waterhouse sketched the monkeys in a number of different poses, such as eating an apple and curled up on the keystone. Architectural trivia for the day.

Source: Flickr / niknkim